Seijaku no Oto
by Seinakyou
Summary: When the sound of silence deafens her, she can only wait by the window for the sound she longs to hear. Drabble-fic, ::Shampoo x Ranma::
1. Allegro

**i.**

She hates him. She wishes that he didn't exist, that he wasn't here to nullify all of her past victories. She hates him with a passion, and wishes she could show him. She wishes that he wasn't so amazing, so perfect, so able to make everything alright just by saying her name. She hates him, hates him, hates him. He looks at her so blandly, like a bug, irritated and tired, and she hates him for it, for dismissing her so easily.

She hates him, she really does, and sometimes, just when she hates him the most, she loves him.

_(She wishes, wishes wishes wishes that there was a way to stop loving/hating him, but her grandmother says duty. And duty is to her tribe. But not to her heart, no never her heart.)_

**ii.**

When she breathes, she breathes slowly, and it almost comforts her.

She's always cold, always so cold, and she was never cold before she met him. It was always warm, and sometimes, when she's with him, it's burning, and she's almost consumed by the flames that he brings with him. But he never stays, and she's always left colder than ever.

Honey drips from her lips, honeyed venom, but not aimed at him, no never at him. Doesn't honey draw flies, after all?

She's always cold, she thinks, and when she's cold, the only thing on her mind is him.

_(Sometimes, even his look can drive away the cold, but he is never warm to her, and the only time he's warm is when he's pressed up next to her.)_

**iii.**

She is always so calm, so tranquil, and can see people with a clarity that most cannot see themselves with. She waits and watches, and looks within.

She invites her over for a visit, she's shocked but obliges. They quietly drink tea together.

"You haven't chosen well," she states as she begins to leave, "But that often means little to the heart."

They share a look, and she smiles sadly. "Shampoo knows."

When she calls for ramen, she knows better than to say anything when she exclaims that she called the wrong number. When she meets her eye, she knows she understands.

_(She's lucky, she gets to be around him all day. But that doesn't really count, not with __**her**__ around.)_

**iv.**

She sees them together, all mushy and gushy and totally sickening and totally in love and she feels her heart break just a little. She's strong though, because all of her people are, so she only cries when she knows that no one will hear her.

She sees them together and so she still tries, because as long as it's **her **maybe she can still win his heart.

Others often ask if she'd like her to say something to him, to put in a good word.

She always politely declines, because this is honour and must be done alone.

_(Alone, alone, always so alone, even though she's never without company.)_

**v.**

One day she decides that he is like the sun. He is always the center, always in middle, and everything revolves around him. Everyone revolves around him.

She stares morosely at the ground, nursing a cup of tea, and wonders where she stands in the solar system of his life.

Sometimes she can just forget, and sometimes she can imagine that she is the Earth to his Sun, that her need for him is reciprocated by his love, his safety.

Then she'll remember, and laughs bitterly.

If he is the sun, then she must be Mercury – burned by his heat.

_(It makes sense she'll think, because she is in a way the closest to him, but she is too close and it burns her, scorns her love. She got too close to the sun, and it repaid her in pain.)_


	2. Adagio

**vi.**

Picture this. A pretty young girl, clinging lovingly on to the arm of her boyfriend; a strong, kind boy who stares down at her lovingly. Picture her wearing something modest, yet pretty, to please him, picture him shyly holding her hand. They might be walking down a path in park, strolling along the beach, it really doesn't matter. Picture her looking up at him, and knowing that there is nothing more she could want anywhere at all than what she has right here, with him.

Just remember, as she always does: when you have to picture something, it isn't real.

(_Smile. These broken fantasies are all you have left, after all.)_

**vii.**

Once a month, she lies in her room and is a cat, just because she can be. Once a month, when the moon is at its fullest and she can stare into the sky and not feel incomplete, she will become a cat because every month, every time this happens, she tells herself that by this time next month, she won't _have_ to look up at the moon and feel complete only one day a year, she'll be able to gaze up at the night sky and know that she isn't alone.

Cats have no sense of obligation, after all.

_(She can't break a promise, she never will. Honour, honour, she knows this. Do they know how hard it is to have someone you love think you're only doing this because of honour? She doesn't think so.)_

**viii.**

She looks down at the blade given to her, given to her on her first day as a warrior. _If you cannot keep the traditions, if you cannot treat our most valued customs with respect, then you cannot keep a life here. Or anywhere else._ She knows better than anyone, ever her grandmother, what the consequences are if she cannot win him as her husband. Of course she knows the consequences. _If she cannot get him as her husband, her tribe will forsake her._ But that matters very little to her now, because if she fails, so shall her life.

_(He doesn't realize that by being with __**her**__, he's taking away everything that matters to her. But if he did and nothing changed, she'd still love him. Probably.)_

**ix.**

Why does **she** look at her with such contempt. Stupid girl, why should you care if I'm trying to win my love. Why would you care if I only wanted him as a prize, either? It's not fair, not fair, not fair! I love him, and you hurt him, and you abuse him, and never trust him with anything, and he still goes back to you at the end of the day. I… she gives him everything, and yet she cannot win his heart. Why, then, _why_ do you hate me so much, if all I ever do is give?

_(She would love to be __**her**__ friend, they might actually get along well if __**her**__ mind wasn't so clouded by hatred. But as long as she loves him and __**she**__ acts like she owns him, they'll never cooperate.)_

**x.**

"No." Her voice is a strangled, choked sob, and she sinks to her knees. "No. This can't be happening." She says, and looks at the wedding invitation. So this is her reward? This is her prize for helping him whenever he asked, saving his life and sometimes, saving **hers**?

For a fleeting moment, she considers giving up, letting him. But for so many reasons, because of so many things, she just can't bear the thought of that. So even as the tears pour down her face, she vows to herself, to anyone who will listen that she'll never stop fighting.

_(She'll smile at him, all dainty like and exactly like always, but a festering hurt is building up inside her heart. Why won't he even look at her?)_


	3. Scherzo

**xi.**

The rumours circulates around the school every time she walks in. (Hey, isn't that one of Ranma's girls? Lucky bastard.) She can honestly just be passing by the house, and then she'll hear another. (Akane, isn't that the Chinese girl? What a whore.)Everyone thinks she's loose, she's crazy, she's a stupid foreigner, she's a prostitute. Even in her workplace, it never stops. (Hey, it's that girl!) (Look, it's her!) (You know, someday, Shampoo is going to snap from all of this pressure.) She can't take all this gossip. Why can't they just leave her alone? (What did she do, anyways?)

_(It hurts, you know. She is, after all, a teenage girl. What's so weird about that?)_

**xii.**

There is an old Chinese legend, set to an old Chinese tune,

It tells us how Shampoo loved Ranma under a cursed moon.

Every night, the two would sleep, under the same sheets

And she'd creep out just before dawn,

Hoping in the day they'd meet

But alas one fateful night, the girl is forsworn

Here she lies forlorn

Till the cold grey dawn

Poor little kitty cat

Where's your friend?

Why are you all alone?

Why do you stay under the sheets, surrounded by their blood,

As the boy and his lover lay dead?

Why are you sad, kitty cat?

_(Shampoo wakes up at this point, but she can still feel the blood on her …curious)_

**xiii.**

When she sheds her robes before bed, she traces the maps of scars on her body. There's that one, from while she was growing up and her father hit her a little too hard. There's the one from getting burned in her rite of passage, it hurt in a grown-up kind of way. There's the first one she got from Ranma, she has very pale skin which is pretty but it scars easily, and that's from falling all wrong. Yes, that's right, she fell all wrong for him, and that's quite a scar he left on her because of it.

_(And that's not all, you can't see all of them, no, no you can't because they exist here. Right here, in my chest. They hurt, why won't they stop?)_

**xiv.**

This is her punishment from her grandmother. This is her punishment from her people. She is to take fifty lashes and never forget that this was a very important law she broke, you were supposed to win him. This is her saviour in Mousse. She will see him daily, as she wakes up and as she falls asleep, in his bed, as his wife. This is her punishment from life: stripped of her rights, made a toy, to be used and abused and thrown away. This is her punishment from Ranma: he loves her, but not enough to chase her.

_(She didn't win him, she was won, her virtue lost in a beautiful moment that she can't take back and he wouldn't either. No drugs, no charms, just them before they were married and all the hell they took, take.)_

**xv.**

She is valuable. What is she? She is a gem, amethyst, coral, beautiful, but cold and hard and unforgiving. What is she? She is silk, pliant and pleasing and beautiful and comforting and the closest comfort to any one person. As a stone, she is immortal – very pretty, untouchable and unattached by forever. As silk she is easily worn out, easily torn, shredded, hurt, but loved and adored and held close. So close, but so far. As an Amazon she is a diamond, as a girl, she's fabric of exquisite quality. As a whole, she doesn't know who she is.

_(To be close and easily hurt, or distant but never loved, just admired? She doesn't know, she's just a girl – but an Amazon – but a girl – but – but…)_


	4. Sonata

**xvi.**

Shampoo doesn't have many principles, many morals. Those are for people with something to lose. She's always been in this with all her heart, all or nothing, but she wants it be all. But she does have some: she can't hurt anyone who doesn't deserve it, but most people do. She won't attack someone in their sleep, unless they've really wronged her. And she absolutely won't fall in love, never, unless it somehow benefits her in a way. And oh, she's starting to realize the benefit in this situation. After all, she's hasn't been allowed to kill anyone in years.

_(But will she, or won't she?)_

**xvii.**

She swears to the nice man on the road from China to Japan that she isn't lost; she just doesn't know where to find what she's looking for. She swears to her grandmother that her heart isn't lost; it's just out of her reach anymore. She swears to Ranma that she hasn't lost her mind; she just can't stand the fact that he's nice to every single of the girls sometimes, except for her. Or when he is, it's because he needs something from her. So that's not blood he's losing, that's not it at all. That's known as trust.

_(He needs to hurt like she does; he needs to lose something so that they can be together. Hopefully, he'll still be together by the time he realizes this.)_

**xviii.**

It's a secret passed down from her people to see people and their intentions, in colour, through eyes that aren't their own. She's only used this power a few times, because it hurts to use and it hurts when you see it. For instance, **she** is purple, which is anger and smugness and manipulation all mixed together. Mousse is bright pink and very hard to look at, because that's a colour for idiots. Ranma's worst. He's every colour on the spectrum, but every time he knows she's there, he's always blue or white: cool, or timid, or maybe even hopeful.

_(Pink is love. She's never seen Ranma have that colour, even during his sappiest moments. What the hell is he?)_

**xix.**

They're all as messed up as she is, she dazedly realizes as she lays, motionless on the ground. So twisted, so horrible, Ranma's killing that guy for hurting her and Ukyou's killing the underlings and even **she**'s trying to help, but what the hell can she do besides getting kidnapped anyways. Why the hell are they all trying to help her, she's been trying to hurt them, to wound them, to kill them, but what's this? They take this as friendship? Those poor, sick, twisted bastards. She pushes herself up, licking the blood off of her lips. Twisted works fine.

_(If they're twisted, then they won't mind this, and this, and this.)_

**xx.**

Ranma looks at the girl standing in front of him with fear, and a little bit of fascination. This isn't the Shampoo he thought he know, he thinks, and this is a better development than either of them could've ever imagined. So he steps towards her, as she laughs madly, kneeling in the remains of the monsters she just slew, because they needed to be stopped to save everything worth saving, everything worthwhile. He steps towards her as she is caked in blood and gore and sweat and betrayal and thinks she is the most beautiful person he's ever seen.

_(He's always been looking for a warrior, someone who'll stop at nothing to get what they want. This is stopping at nothing, this is true power. This is what he wants.)_


End file.
